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Bungie Vs. Miyamoto - Fight!
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon May 14, 2007 11:36 AM
from the not-that-combat-heavy dept.
from the not-that-combat-heavy dept.
Last week Gamehead's Geoff Keighley interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto, and the well-known designer tossed off a mildly controversial comment. Keighley asked him if he felt as though he was losing touch with the American audience as a result of the popularity of games like Halo. GameDaily reports on Miyamoto's response: "I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play." Bungie took exception to that, and Frank Connor retorted in his interview with Joystiq: "Yeah, well. I just want to go on the record and say that Bungie is hard at work on a side-scrolling platform game featuring some plumbers -- I'm not going to say what their ethnicity is, it's none of anyone's business -- but we took that as a gauntlet, a sort of glove slap, and we're going to respond in 2D scrolling style. That's all I'm saying." We discussed that article, along with several other pieces of Halo 3 coverage, this past Saturday.
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Halo 3 Beta Impressions 209 comments
Yesterday in New York City Microsoft held an invite-only preview of the Halo 3 Beta, and passed out early Beta keys to a group of game journalists. The result is a barrage of coverage about this most-anticipated title. Notable features beyond basic previews include Dan Hsu's take on the game, Dean Takahashi's 'I got my butt kicked' perspective, the San Jose Merc's interview with Bungie Community Lead Brian Jarrad, CVG's hosting of the official Beta Movie, and Joystiq's interview with Frank O'Connor, Bungie's writing lead. From the 1up preview: "It's unmistakably Halo gameplay, despite the rearranged controls (which feel natural after 10 minutes), and all of the additions fit perfectly into the multiplayer universe we've come to love. The interface has been overhauled and is even easier to use, and you now have such niceties as being able to change your control layout at any point on any screen. While the visuals are rich and beautiful, it's the audio that's really impressed us so far. The rumbling throttle of unleashing dual SMGs makes them feel incredibly powerful, and the Spartan Laser tearing past your head is as scary as you'd imagine. Audio cues are more important than ever, and the better your sound system the more next-gen this will feel." More coverage below.
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Mainstream Audience 'Noticing' Games Again 58 comments
In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Shigeru Miyamoto makes it plain that he's extremely pleased with the way the Wii has changed the face of gaming. He says that he gets the feeling that 'because of the Wii, people ... are finally taking notice of videogames again.' The interview goes on to discuss some ways in which Miyamoto hopes to capitalize on that 'notice', including the possibility of introducing new Nintendo characters sometime next year: "For characters, we came up with the concept of the Miis and that allows people to come up with their own characters. Maybe next year sometime, we may have new characters in the same way we came up with Pikmin when we introduced the GameCube."
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Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's Hai!
Re:Well... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Halo 2 for the Xbox ranks 16th with 6.11million units sold
Metroid Prime ranks 147th with 1.92 units sold
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console= &publisher=&sort=America [vgchartz.com]
Keep in mind this is all platforms for all time, competing against greats like Mario Bros on the NES, Tetris on the Gameboy, The Sims on the PC, and Grand Theft Auto on the PS2. Ranking 16 and 25th for all time is no sma
Re:Halo's popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
-Lee
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Re:Halo's popularity (Score:4, Interesting)
First off, it's cute, using the statistics only for America. How about we re-run those numbers on a global market? Custom-designing your game to appeal much more to a narrower demographic is always going to give you more spectacular results. Try this one instead*:
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php [vgchartz.com]
Note how the Halos now have their asses kicked. Sure, they're still big sellers... but note how *most* of the games coming before Halo 2 are Miyamoto games. (this is where I'm getting back to the point)
What Miyamoto's saying is that by concentrating on making really awesome, original games he keeps pumping out great games. Sure, he has the skill to make Yet Another Game, but so does every other game developer out there with two and a half brain cells to rub together. The top of the line pop studios (id, Bungie, etc.) do have better success rates, but they still have to compete with other plain-jane studios. He's saying that he's not aiming for the cheeseburger market. Sure, it provides a big hit or two... but note how most of the big hits are those revolutionary games. Even on a strictly numerical game, he's winning hands-down. Why don't more studios do that? They can't or they won't. He never actually insulted Halo-- only that Bungie was pursuing a saturated market.
(*Also, how did Metroid Prime only ship 120K units in Japan? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. How accurate are these numbers?)
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The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
It is by and large Marathon 4/5/6, there's plenty of evidence it takes place in the same Universe, etc, and is only separated by a large amount of time. Since they also created Marathon, this isn't a huge shock. Marathon was groundbreaking mostly in that it brought an interesting storyline to a FPS game, other than that it was really Mac;s answer to Doom. Of course, Doom was just a revampled Castle Wolfenstien 3-D, which was a 3-D version of an old Apple II game, which probably traced its roots back to the old Bezerker game (which never bothered to explain why you were in a maze running from deadly robots), which probably draws inspiration from an old movie, which was inspired by an old story, which was...
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking ill of a legend like Miyamoto is not something I would do, and I think the guy at Bungie comes off a little arrogant for doing so.
Disclaimer: The last Nintendo console I bought was an SNES, so I don't think I could be counted as a Nintendo fanboy.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you could just be looking at the question through the lens of nostalgia.
Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but the difference is that Super Mario Bros. was revolutionary when it was first introduced, as evident by the numerous SMB clones that followed in its wake. I'm hard-pressed to think of a popular game that played like SMB before SMB was introduced.
Halo, on the other hand, was just the latest iteration of a long line of FPS inspired by Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's not to say it's not very, very influential. Look at how many post-Halo games restrict you to a realistic amount of weapons? Look at how many post-Halo games have a 'recharging' HP mechanism of some sort. Not to mention, Halo was the first game to really, really, truly nail down vehicle physics.
Halo isn't a revolutionary game in the ecosystem of "all videogames." In the ecosystem of "fi
Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Where you might say, "Think FF7 is a real RPG? Try playing Baulder's Gate or Nethack", I might say, "Think FF7 is a real RPG? Try playing Tales of the Abyss or Ar Tonelico". Seriously, we're talking apple's and oranges here.
East vs. West, Console vs. PC, RPG vs. jRPG... each side takes a different spin on tabletop gaming... jRPGs concentrate on the story element, western RPGs capitalize on non-linearity. Whichever you think works better is up to the audience.
I personally would fall asleep 10 minutes into Baulder's gate. Ar Tonelico might make you do the same.
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent observation.
And for what it's worth, I'd like to point out that popularity is a pretty complex issue. We seem to operate under the assumption that it's some kind of direct relationship to quality or some other simplistic explanation (e.g. like how good the controls are). The modern narrative about popularity when it comes to art is that blockbusters are kind of mundane and inoffensive with enough explosions/sex/(pick your easily reproduced element to look down on) while the *real* talent shows up in indie/niche creations that you have to be intelligent/free-thinking/(pick your vaguely cool counter-cultural trait) enough to really get.
And while I'll agree that Creed and Nickelback basically suck, the Beatles and Pink Floyd were really good. So sometimes the popular stuff really is good, and sometimes the niche stuff really isn't (no example here: not looking for a flamewar).
FWIW, Halo is my favorite game of all time on any system. From NES, Sega, SNES, PS, XBOX, GC, Wii, 360 (consoles I've played) and over a decade of PCs, I prefer Halo. Why? The story. Just visit ILoveBees.com and you'll get a glimpse of the thought and talent that goes into the world creation. Does this have anything to do with how popular the game is? There's no way to know. Did they get the gameplay just right? Hit the market at just the right time? Was the story good enough to develop an initial core of fans who pushed the game to the frat boys that made it a blockbuster? We'll never know, in my opinion, and the only lesson is that oversimplifying popularity is for fanbois and trolls.
Now go listen to "Indier than Thou."
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also a possibility that they just have no experience playing FPS on a PC, where basically all good FPS games are released. Either way, it's a lack of perspective on the history of the genre that allows them to make the ridiculous claim that Halo is good, let alone great or groundbreaking or any of the other absurdities they use.
This phenomenon is almost identical to that surrounding the FF7 fanaticism. At least in the US, and probably Europe as well. I'm not sure what can account for the Japanese obsession with it, since they clearly should know better (and do given their preference for Dragon Quest), but I'm not sure anyone is really supposed to understand Japanese tastes even some of the time, to say nothing of all the time.
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And seriously, MP is NOT a first person shooter. It may technically fit the bill, but that's only a technicality. The types of skills it requires and the fanbase are nothing like Halo or Counterstrike. It's basically a sci-fi Zelda where the camera happens to be first person... One look at the tastes of its fanbase will cue you in.
Here's a clue, if something's commonly called "the first-person shooter for people who hate first-pers
Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:4, Informative)
A couple other Nintendo people helped with the game design also, not just Miyamoto, including the original designer, Yoshio Sakamoto.
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The thing is that it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
The graphics on Halo suck. At the time Halo 1 was getting really popular I got into a discussion about the graphics with a roommate. He was comparing Jedi Outcast at 1600x1200 with Halo at 640x480 and saying that Halo was better. This is the kind of mentality that most Halo fans have. To them, Halo is "Just Better(TM)." I had to just ignore him, as I've had to do with everyone else who says anything about Halo's graphics being good at all. Jedi Outcast was not even trying to be a graphics power house, it was running off an old engine and it still looked better with a Radeon 7200.
Level Design? My goodness, man, what are you smoking. Have you even played the library level? After about two minutes you don't even know which direction you're going, which direction you came from, and you can't even count how many times you've seen the exact same stuff over and over again and again. The maps on the ships aren't much better. Sure there are big areas outdoors, but those are repetitive as well, they just don't feel like it when compared to the monotony you just sustained from every indoor environment.
I don't know how the control scheme compares with other console FPS, but I didn't think it was all that great. It was fine, but the only thing I thought even worth mentioning about it was that you could throw a grenade without having to switch to that weapon. I won't get into a comparison between control schemes for PC-based and console-based games, because that's been done, and is somewhat irrelevant to why Halo was popular on a console, but there wasn't anything special about the controls.
Multi-player is kind of hard to judge. There are lots of games that have better. Comparing time played, as of right now, Counter-Strike has over 5 billion minutes of play logged each month. Adding in CS:S and CS:CZ nets closer to 7.5 billion minutes each month. Since it's inception, Xbox live has logged a total of 2.3 billion hours, or to put it in similar units, 138 billion minutes. Let's be generous and pretend that Halo 2 accounted for every last minute (Halo 1 wasn't on Xbox Live so we can't include it). It would take Counter-Strike 18 months to equal that. IOW, one game does in 18 months what an entire service does in 72. Yet we don't have Counter-strike in the headlines every couple of days do we?
That's somewhat off-topic however. The thing Halo has going for it, I conjecture, might be that it has no bots. People are forced to play with others if they are going to do it at all. But then you'd be crazy to play it on the same box. You get 640x480 divided by 4. A whopping 320x240 in all of its interlaced glory. I did that once, every one talked about how cool it was. I was too busy trying to adjust my eyes to being able to see what I was even looking at. I must say that I enjoyed my time despite the screen size, but that's called a party. It wasn't because of Halo. I would have had a much more enjoyable experience playing UT, Trackmania, or any other game where we each have our own screen, or where the screen is shared more efficiently, such as Wii sports or something. I hate to be a poor sport, but the reason we have Halo stories all the time is beca
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Not news (Score:4, Insightful)
It has no merit what so ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Lost in transaltion (Score:5, Informative)
Essentially, when Miyamoto said he could "make Halo" what he meant was "He could make a game like Halo"
I could be wrong but I think Miyamoto was saying he makes the games he does because they're the kinds of games he wants to make; he is not influenced by the popularity of a genre or series to attempt to make games like them.
Frank Connor Missed the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
This is irrelevant... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is Halo really that great? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gameplay is relatively easy, cheating is minimal, and there are TONS of customizable options to set up whatever competition you want to do easily (the BIGGEST bonus).
Re:Is Halo really that great? (Score:5, Insightful)
It came out for the Xbox and found a large population of teens that never had played another FPS.
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Well, duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is Halo really that great? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, of course, for Goldeneye.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Level Design: Yes, the library sucked. Most of the game was quite good, but lets ignore that because 2-3 levels were repetitive. It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Halo and Half-Life are both on a rail, and both fairly obvious about it.
Weapons: The only innovation is the gravity gun. Crowbar? Melee weapon. Crossbow? Functionally a sniper rifle. However, Halo let you use a weapon, melee, and grenades
Argument That Will Never End (Score:3, Insightful)
Bungie is the Porsche of the gaming world.
Miyamoto seems to look for something new with each game. Trying to find new ways to engage the user. He comes at each one with a flair and a passion. He's not doing the same thing over and over. Some games work. Some don't. But you do have a wide variety of games to choose from that caters to your particular interests.
Miyamoto (Nintendo) is the Ferrari of the gaming world.
Rounding out the analogy Blizzard is the TVR [wikipedia.org] of the gaming world. Love-it or hate-it design, completely insane and riddled with problems, yet you can't help but keep playing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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They all have good points (Score:5, Interesting)
All the game companies are good at certain things, it's just that the markets are reflective of what each company is basing their priorities on.
Microsoft was intialy trying to make the X-Box into a platform to try to force the convergence of console and PC gaming. Later when it became clear that they were really on to something with X-Box Live, they switched tactics and focused on providing top shelf online content (although the latest half hearted attempt to bring Live to Vista bodes poorly for Microsofts learning abilities).
Sony on the other hand has always been focused primarily on graphics performance. Yes they had some good games, but nothing ever revolutionary, but pretty and often fun. The primary hallmark of the Playstation platform is a shotgun approach to game development. They make as many games as they can, throw them out there and see what sticks. This approach can lead to some very good games, but also leads to some very very bad games. The primary failing of Sony is in not providing any new innovation in the latest generation of consoles. The Playstation 3 was positioned to be a multimedia convergence device, but so far the market for said devices has proved to be rather poor, and what little there is is primarily dominated by inexpensive PCs. The good news for Sony is that historically the Playstation consoles really only hit their stride after a year or two on the market, so it has the potential to outperform the competition in terms of raw power. There is also some rumbling of Sony taking online content more seriously, although whether or not they can provide a credible challenge to Live remains to be seen.
The last player on the market, and the most relevant to this article is Nintendo. Nintendo realized a long time ago that fun games, and innovative systems will out sell fancy graphics. A clear cut example of this is the origional Gameboy versus the graphically superior Gamegear. The Gamegear had a color screen and more processing power, but was more expensive, slightly bulkier, and was much more demanding on power (which resulted in it eating batteries left and right, I should know, I had one). Nintendo has always been middle of the road in terms of graphics and processing power, but what has set them aside has traditionally been their willingness to try new and innovative controls and games. Sometimes this has hurt them, and they have made more than a few products that failed spectactularly (Virtualboy anyone?), but on the other hand they have released a number of products that show some genuine innovation. I think the relative failure of the Gamecube served as a wakeup call to Nintendo, they realized that they weren't able to compete on graphics and if they were going to survive they needed to embrace the creative aspects of their game and console design more fully (prior to the DS and Wii most Nintendo products were less daring in departure from the norm of console gaming). It will be interesting to see if Nintendo can pull off the online portion of the gaming puzzle (which will be critical for all three consoles) sufficiently to keep Wii ahead of X-Box 360 and Playstation 3, of if they will fumble it and have to settle for second place.
"Rather touchy aren't they" (Score:4, Insightful)
Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Funny)
Bungie's response sounds like, "Oh yeah well... You're a poopy head!" Given cultural differences and the possibility of a hokey translation, I wouldn't take this as a slam. Just another persons opinion.
Sounds like Bungie has been an MS company for too long. If it's not the MS way, it's wrong, you suck. Look out, flying chair!
So bungie owned themselves... (Score:4, Funny)
I mean it's like watching some idiot try to debate online.
Miyamoto you wuss (Score:5, Funny)
Miyamoto is talking small potatoes here with his "I can make Halo" boast. Miyamoto can probably make Ocarina of Time if he tries hard enough.
I read this as.. (Score:4, Funny)
I hope Zippy and George get to kick some ass too.
Any Brits will know what I'm talking about.
Can anyone really make Halo? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll start by pointing out that I'd choose almost any game Nintendo has produced over Halo or anything else Bungie has developed. That said, I don't think Nintendo is the pinnacle of innovation like some incessantly claim. I like Nintendo's games not because they're innovative but because they're fun as hell. Nintendo knows what's fun almost better than anyone else. They know how to make a game that's balanced and engaging.
But to call their games innovative is a stretch. The DS and Wii both have unique control devices, and I agree that some level of innovation was involved. However, I see both more as evolutions of the mouse and I think many of the games available for those platforms reflect that. Many of these feel like glorified Flash games.
In fact, one of the reasons I like Nintendo is because of a sense of familiarity. Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Pokemon, etc don't really provide any innovation over past games, but I like that. I know what to expect and I know it's going to be good. If we're going to start looking at innovative games I think the best console to look at is the PS2. That system has countless innovative games some of which have even spurred the development of new genres.
I think this is an important point because ultimately the implication behind Miyamoto's comment is that Halo is not innovative; it's a game anyone could make if they felt like it. Well, anyone could make that argument about anything Nintendo has made. Developing a good FPS isn't something that can just be cobbled together on a whim. Hell, Nintendo didn't even develop their own FPS, Metroid Prime. They had Retro Studios develop that game. So apparently, for one reason or another, they couldn't do it themselves even if they wanted to.
I myself don't think Halo is anything special, in terms of gameplay anyway. But I will give them credit where it's due. One thing they did well is presentation. The game is well-paced and presents a story that's involving. And it provides a pleasant contrast to most other FPSs which are mono-chromatic and bland, at least visually. Bungie offered an FPS that didn't involve blasting demons, gang members or nazis.
Perhaps anyone could make Halo, but the fact is that nobody else did. Just like anyone could make a Wiimote but nobody else did.
Lost in translation (Score:4, Insightful)
I think a lot of people are mistaking Frank's comment. It doesn't seem like he's retorting, as people put it, but instead making a sly-sarcastic remark. He not affirming Miyamoto's point (that he just finds what people like and makes that), he's replying to Miyamoto's remark (I can make Halo, but choose not to) with his own remark: I could('ve) made Mario, but choose not to.
Yes, he states, "We are hard at work on a side-scrolling platform game..." But we know he's not. It's obviously a joke. He could be hard at work on that side-scroller, but he chooses not to. He's hard at work on Halo. And that's that.
How the source code of the industry looks... (Score:4, Funny)
If he made an FPS (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, if he were to make an FPS, it'd probably wind up with an engine that supported jumping puzzles in a non-intrusive way (somehow he would; I'm not the design god here). And have a quirky sense of design, not the normal "I R SPACE MERC I KILL U" layout. And the weapons would be strange and unconventional, requiring more strategy than "get the biggest gun and kill things fasterer". And...
Hang on a sec. That might rock. Miyamoto, please do design an FPS! That might be interesting!
Not Popular? (Score:4, Informative)
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